This matter
disposed of, we hired a wagon and drove on to Kansas Landing. Here
we were again received under the hospitable roof of our old friend
Colonel Chick, and seated on his porch we looked down once more on
the eddies of the Missouri.
Delorier made his appearance in the morning, strangely transformed by
the assistance of a hat, a coat, and a razor. His little log-house
was among the woods not far off. It seemed he had meditated giving a
ball on the occasion of his return, and had consulted Henry Chatillon
as to whether it would do to invite his bourgeois. Henry expressed
his entire conviction that we would not take it amiss, and the
invitation was now proffered, accordingly, Delorier adding as a
special inducement that Antoine Lejeunesse was to play the fiddle.
We told him we would certainly come, but before the evening arrived a
steamboat, which came down from Fort Leavenworth, prevented our being
present at the expected festivities. Delorier was on the rock at the
landing place, waiting to take leave of us.
"Adieu! mes bourgeois; adieu! adieu!" he cried out as the boat pulled
off; "when you go another time to de Rocky Montagnes I will go with
you; yes, I will go!"
He accompanied this patronizing assurance by jumping about swinging
his hat, and grinning from ear to ear.
